I think a moment of relative silence (-10 dB) would be appropriate for the passing of Ray Dolby.

Seriously, a brilliant inventor. The various codecs Dolby Labs developed for Dolby Digital multi-channel surround, both in the cinema and for domestic surround are flawless and greatly enhanced home theater and music reproduction realism.

Indeed! And let's not forget that he also gave us Thomas Dolby, who was blinded by science.

As I discussed with BobKay in a PM, Thomas Dolby is NOT related to Ray Dolby; in fact, "Dolby" is a stage name of Thomas Robertson, the musician. Might as well squelch this myth that's been floating around for decades. From Wikipedia, here's the story:

"The Thomas Dolby stage name originated from a nickname that he picked up around "the early 70s", when he was "always messing around with keyboards and tapes".[5] His friends nicknamed him Dolby, from the name of an audio noise-reduction process from Dolby Laboratories used for audio recording and playback. British singer Tom Robinson was popular when Dolby began his career, and Robertson chose to adopt the stage name "Thomas Dolby" to avoid confusion. Early publicity implied that "Dolby" was a middle name, and that the artist's full name was Thomas Morgan Dolby Robertson; this is not true, but he does sometimes informally go by the initials TMDR.

After the release of "She Blinded Me With Science", Dolby Laboratories expressed concern regarding the musician's stage name. Dolby's record label refused to make him change his name, and Dolby Labs did not raise the issue again until later. After a lengthy legal battle, the court decided that Dolby Labs had no right to restrict the musician from using the name. It was agreed that the musician would not release any electronic equipment using the name.[6] (Coincidentally, inventor/founder Dr. Ray Dolby had a son named Thomas.)"

To expand on the wiki, CBC Interviewed Thomas Dolby over the weekend to discuss the death of Ray Dolby, even though they knew there was no blood connection. According to Thomas, the lawsuits were dropped after Thomas and Ray finally met in person and Ray realized that (in the words of Thomas,) "I wasn't such a bad bloke."

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With great power comes Awesome irresponsibility.